All high school, junior college, and senior college athletes have to deal with matters of eligibility. It is one of the prices you pay for being an athlete in school. Few athletes understand all there is to know about the rules of eligibility; most know only what the coach has chosen to explain to them. Some athletes learn the rules only after they've broken one or two, after it's too late to avoid paying a penalty.
In this chapter, we will present the rules of athletic eligibility that determine which students are allowed to play for college sports teams. The rules focus on two areas: amateur status and academic progress. It's easier to understand and remember rules if we know where they come from and why we have them. So, before listing the rules, we'll take a short side trip to help you better understand why they exist.
WHY DO WE HAVE ELIGIBILITY RULES?
Rules of eligibility for playing college athletics have existed almost since the beginning of college sports. The first purpose of eligibility rules was-and continues to be-to ensure that athletes be students and keep on the track toward graduation. The second purpose of eligibility rules is to ensure that student-athletes retain their amateur status, no matter how good they may be or how valuable they are to the college.
These two guiding principles that lie behind eligibility rules for playing college sports complement and support each other. If an athlete is attracted to a college primarily to play a sport, the possibility exists that he or she might have little interest in getting an education. And if athletes could be directly paid to play for colleges, schools might be interested in these athletes only as employees hired to produce athletic victories. College athletes whose main interest is making money from playing their sport interfere with the school's educational purpose and take space in classes that could be filled by students who are interested in getting an education. College athletics exists for students, not for hired hands. If college athletes remain nonprofessional, they are more likely to truly be students. Maintaining what has been called the amateur ideal for student-athletes also saves the school a lot of money. If college athletes were allowed to be paid more than a basic scholarship and living expenses, then colleges would have as hard a time holding salaries in line as professional team owners do.
One problem with this amateur ideal in college sports is that, through the years, the definition of the term amateur has changed. In the early era of college sports (roughly the first 40 years, or until the 1920s) no payment to athletes of any kind was legal, not even what we now call athletic scholarships. Amateur athletes, it was believed, should receive nothing for their skills but the pleasure and privilege of playing for their school. Even organized recruitment of athletes was considered wrong.
But having good teams has always meant a lot to colleges, in both monetary terms and prestige, so athletes were recruited and received scholarships anyway. Although the NCAA had rules against athletes being recruited and paid in any form (whether in free tuition, meals, lodging, cars, clothes, or spending money), the rules had no teeth: The penalties for violating rules were no more severe than a hand slap. The NCAA at that time was a watchdog with a bark but no bite.
Because the practice of recruiting and awarding free tuition, room, and board to college athletes became so common, the officials who oversaw collegiate sports eventually changed their definition of an amateur athlete. For the last 50 or so years, an amateur athlete has been defined as someone who receives no more than basic college expenses in exchange for his or her athletic skills. Since other students with special abilities-such as those gifted in particular academic disciplines or the arts-frequently had their way paid through school in the form of a grant or scholarship, it was reasoned that there was little justification for withholding the same sorts of benefits from athletes.
However, there is a difference between top athletes and highly skilled students in other areas. A college cannot earn money or gain popular support based on the talents of its top students and performing artists to the extent that it can from top athletes. As a result, many colleges began to offer athletic prospects a little extra in the way of benefits (sometimes a lot extra) to play for them. The new rules tried to guard against student-athletes being bought, but they fell short of requiring that college athletes really fulfill their role as students-by taking a full range of classes, following a major, maintaining adequate grades, and progressing toward a degree. For many years, college sports were populated by "tramp athletes," professionals who peddled their services to whatever school would pay them the most, sometimes changing names after they had flunked out or in order to play for more than the legal limit of four years. These tramp athletes found many colleges willing to buy their services.
Thus, in spite of the somewhat more relaxed definition of amateur athlete that emerged in the 1930s, it soon became clear that additional eligibility rules were needed, both to guard amateur standing and to monitor the academic progress of athletes. But the imposition of more rules often results in more ingenious ways to get around the rules. As people found loopholes and ways around the rules, even more rules were added, always with the twin purposes of trying to keep college athletes as true students and honest amateurs. It seemed to be a losing battle because the NCAA, whose members included the largest, most competitive colleges, still had no power to punish with meaningful penalties those who broke the rules.
In 1952, after nearly half a century of trying to control college athletics, the NCAA gained the power to penalize schools by banning rule-breakers from bowl games, tournaments, and coverage on television. Avoiding these penalties was important; penalties cost the athletic programs money and prevented them from receiving the national exposure they need to recruit top athletes. The new penalties helped to stop some cheating, but as college sports boomed in the decades that followed, the stakes have continued to increase in college athletics. Star athletes are still being paid more than the rules allow, a practice which, as always, attracts many who aren't particularly serious about being a student and getting an education. To keep star athletes academically eligible for sports, coaches continue to find new ways to sneak them into school and through easy courses.
Not everyone involved in college athletics cheats. Many coaches, school administrators, and alumni remain competitive within the rules. But since the prizes for winning are so great and losing contests can result in lost jobs, there is constant pressure on coaches to cheat as they suspect their opponents are doing. So the rules designed to control amateur competition and the academic progress of college athletes get tougher and more involved. The result is that you and other student-athletes must contend with a long list of detailed rules governing what makes a student eligible to play college sports.
ARE ELIGIBILITY RULES YOUR FRIEND OR FOE?
The rules governing academic eligibility may seem like obstacles, but they exist for the student-athlete's benefit. They are intended to help ensure that you get an education while you play college sports. Without these eligibility rules, many athletes who don't yet realize the value of a good education would be in college solely to play sports. Worse, without these rules, some coaches would pressure their athletes to forget schoolwork and devote all their time and effort to their sport. Academic eligibility rules are intended to protect athletes from themselves and from others who would exploit them.
Men's basketball coaches Digger Phelps of Notre Dame, John Thompson of Georgetown University, and Bobby Knight of Indiana University, and Penn State football coach Joe Paterno, are examples of big-time coaches who are very concerned about the academic progress of their athletes. They are committed to providing their athletes with a good education. Academic eligibility rules don't exist to control these coaches and others who have good intentions toward their student-athletes. Rather, eligibility rules are made for those coaches who would and do cheat their athletes of an education by demanding too much commitment of time and energy to the team and not enough to school.
Sometimes, the fault is less with the coach than with the student, who would prefer playing to studying. In such cases, the academic eligibility rules protect athletes from themselves. Many athletes keep up with school work simply because eligibility rules force them to.
The remainder of this chapter lists the rules of eligibility for college athletes. Before reading these rules, be aware of three important points: (1) if you've fallen below the minimum academic guidelines and become ineligible, you can always work back into good academic standing; (2) if you've broken the rules of amateur status, on the other hand, you may be permanently ineligible for college athletics; (3) if you violate one or more of these eligibility rules-whether on purpose or not-you may cause your team to forfeit some contests or lose the chance for postseason competition or televised coverage and forfeit your own eligibility as well.
Each year before you are allowed to compete, you must sign a statement saying essentially that you have read the rules of eligibility and had a chance to ask questions about them. An athlete's official reading of the rules and signing of a statement, however, is usually done in a large group-either with other members of the team or with all athletes competing during that term. In this environment, it may be difficult for you to read and understand the rules, much less to ask questions about those you don't understand. It's better for you to see these rules in advance so that you can think about them and, if need be, ask a coach, advisor, or athletic director privately about something you are unsure of.
